Add-ons in the World of Warcraft are basically small programs that extend the functionality of the game itself. Some of the examples of these add-ons are the "Advanced Auctioneer" and "CT_Mod". There are several add-ons out there (currently well into the thousands). With so many add-ons to choose from people can find it a bit tedious to even being to use the add-ons. There are several websites dedicated to the add-ons, "mods", and tools to create add-ons. Links to some of those sites will be found under the "Add-on Links" button to the left.

Some of the advantages to installing and using add-ons in WoW are:

• More Viewable Information
Thisw is just what it says. There are some add-ons that will give more information in the tool-tips for items and quests than is otherwise available. The can include Enchantrix, which gives you extended information about magic items for enchanters, Quest Guru, which gives you additional information about quests. These are valuable add-ons for any player.


• Customization of the user interface
Add-ons that customize the interface are widespread. The more popular ones address the button bars at the bottom, to changing the mini-map at the top, to letting you arrange the add-on buttons you will get after installing add-ons. These can help speed up how you can use the interface, as well as clean up the overall game screen. These are not needed, but they do make you game experience more pleasureable most times.


• Quick Function Use
These add-ons are some of the best. There are add-ons for general use, and those that are class specific. They allow the use of specific combat skils to overall professional skills with more ease. One good example would be ATSW, or Advanced Tradeskill Window.

There are a few drawbacks to add-ons however. One drawback is the need to constantly Update them. Now, some add-ons will continue to work without update just fine when the game is updated, other add-ons break. When an add-on breaks you have to either update the add-on or get rid of it. Depending on the add-on you may not have a choice as to which option you have to choose. There are programs that can help you keep up to date, however, they do not always work to update to the newest or the most stable versions. The other drawback is the memory usage. If you are running a computer that had a small amount of memory (less than 1GB for windows XP and less than 2GB for Windows Vista), the use of add-ons could make the game behave slowly or crash. The rest Is because every add-on uses some memory, and it can get to be upwards of 120MB of additional memory usage. That may not seem like alot, but Previous to the 2.3 path the standard amount was 60mb before the game would crash with pretty regular certainty.

All-in-all however, the disadvantages do not outweigh the good that add-ons can accomplish.